The Conqueror Read Online Free Page A

quickly and beckoned at
a boy, who came over and gave him a thick pair of
potholders.
    “ Spoon.”
    “ Yes, sir.” The lad
scuttled off to get him one.
    The kitchen boys would catch it today,
if he knew Margg. The pair moved to Taez’s cubicle where he kept
the books and there were locking cupboards for anything expensive
that might walk away.
    The kid was back again.
    Nyron nodded and the boy stuck it in
the pie.
    “ Off you go, then.” Nyron
looked around at the bustling activity.
    The noise, as usual, was
bedlam.
    They fed hundreds of hungry mouths on a
daily basis and they had the staff to prove it, with people
cooking, stirring, brewing, cheese-making, setting out platters,
carving, and washing up the inevitable pots and pans. The main
kitchen area was a hundred feet long and then there was a series of
storerooms along the back wall. The hearth was a marvel, fully
twelve feet tall and with multiple iron doors, ranges, and warming
surfaces in addition to a pair of open fires with spits big enough
to roast an ox.
    Theft and pilfering would always be a
problem with stores and beverages littering the place at all
times.
    Things walked away from the kitchen
with depressing frequency around there. Nyron seated himself on the
bench just inside the door. How many kitchen boys had sweated it
out on that bench, waiting for Taez to dispense justice in his own
inimitable fashion over the years? All of them,
probably.
    “ So. Taez.” Nyron took a
long breath and just spat it out. “We have a very special prisoner
today. Came in just now, along with the usual lot of sorry
slobs.”
    “ Oh, really?” Taez, busy
with the accounts and the constant re-provisioning of a household
that numbered anything up to three hundred warm bodies on any given
day, and that was when there was nothing really special going
on.
    Taez enjoyed Nyron’s company well
enough.
    Nyron wasn’t one to hang about all day,
and that was better than some would-be acquaintances.
    The Army had their own mess, their own
quarter-master and their own kitchen. Taez imagined things weren’t
much better over there. It was just another side of the fence.
Nyron was welcome enough to the pie, if it came right down to
it.
    Taez was also a busy man, subject to
supervision and the occasional audit from above, just like anybody
else.
    “ They say he’s the king of
some barbaric northern tribe.” Nyron held his hand up, palm down,
indicating that the height of the prisoner was a good eight or ten
inches greater than his own. “I mean, this one is really
something.”
    “ Hmn.”
    “ Uh, huh. They say they’re
asking a hundred gold pieces for him.”
    Taez’s head lifted from his account
books. His door was always open, and his crowded little cubby was
in the noisy kitchen area with its hordes of bodies, all hands all
keeping busy just to keep up with the demand. Nyron got up with a
little grunt and thoughtfully shut the heavy oaken door, not
latching it but leaving a crack open to indicate that people could
enter on actual business.
    They could hear each other a little
better now.
     
    ***
     
    After taking a good look at Lowren the
night before, on Nyron’s suggestion he was in attendance at the
auction first thing next morning.
    Taez didn’t think much of it at first.
The place was certainly crowded this morning, a wooden bull-ring
with high rafters holding up an octagonal dome roof, also in wood.
There were tiers of seats, with a raised platform for distinguished
guests such as himself. There were barricades in front of the wall,
a walkway around behind the short barriers, and stalls in under the
galleried seating for animals penned and waiting for
sale.
    Looking around, he saw one or two
people he knew. The noise was horrendous, even compared to the
kitchen. He watched a few desultory sales, and bought one or two
lots, but Taez wasn’t here for beef or mutton today. He wasn’t even
sure he was going to do it. It was just curiosity more than
anything. At